‘What about me?’
‘Oh, you’re different. He’s thought better of it, you can bet your life, and I don’t blame him.’
‘It’s not like him to be late.’
‘So you keep saying. I expect it’s not like him to be dining with somebody like me.’
‘Don’t keep saying that—you’re not like anyone except yourself.’
‘All he wants is to go to bed with me.’
‘A moment ago you were saying that he wouldn’t come because you were a——’
‘That’s right, try to make me contradict myself.’
‘Mr. Lenthall, please, Mr. Lenthall, please,’ intoned a page-boy in a high-pitched nasal sing-song, threading his way between the tables, fixing each guest in turn with a speculative, hopeful stare. ‘A telephone call for Mr. Lenthall, please. Mr. Lenthall, please.’
It was only when he had called my name for the fourth time that I realized he meant me.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, rising.
‘Is that your name? You never told me. You never tell me anything.’
I didn’t like to leave her to herself—I had a vague idea that the other diners might rise and drum her out—but I was glad to get away. As a companion, the telephone made less demands than Doris.
‘Is that Ernest?’
‘Yes, you old devil. Why aren’t you here? Where are you?’
‘At Restbourne.’
‘Where?’
‘At Restbourne.’
The story he told me didn’t to me make sense. I had to believe it because Edward was nothing if not truthful, but believing it I also had to doubt my sanity. The telephone-box became a cage, a padded cell.
‘You can’t mean that.’
‘But I do mean it. I’m terribly sorry, but you do understand, don’t you? Make what excuses for me you can.’
‘I don’t understand a single thing, so how can I make excuses for you?’
‘Tell her what I’ve told you.’
‘I can’t explain why now, but she won’t believe it any more than I do—not so much. She’ll have a special reason for not believing it. She’ll scratch my eyes out—you don’t know what women of that sort can do.’
‘Tell her it was love at first sight. She must be used to that.’
‘To lust no doubt, but not to love. You are a brute, letting me down like this. And I don’t believe you’re in Restbourne at all, you’re here, in the next room.’
Edward laughed. His happiness had made him pachydermatous. He kept saying he was sorry, but not a trace of shame showed in his voice. It was so full of triumph and personal elation that I hardly recognized it.
‘Are you spending the night at Restbourne?’
‘Yes, and perhaps to-morrow night. I must ring off now—she’s waiting for me.’
‘Well,’ said Doris. ‘What did your boy-friend say? You were so long he must have told you the whole story of his life——’
‘He did, in a way. But now let’s order dinner.’
Steak was one of the things she asked for, and stout to wash it down, but I persuaded her to have champagne. ‘You’ll need it,’ I said, ‘and so shall I.’
‘I don’t suppose you could tell me anything that would surprise me.’
‘I think I can.’ Then suddenly I had a doubt—for what’s in a name? Had I jumped to some idiotic conclusion? Was it a damp squib after all?
‘I’m waiting,’ Doris warned me.
‘Well, he’s at Restbourne. There, I knew you’d be surprised.’
She recovered herself quickly.
‘So are about eighty thousand other people. What’s odd in that?’
‘It would take too long to tell you.’
‘Everything’s taken long to-night.’
‘Well, here’s your steak at any rate, and my grilled sole.’
I asked the waiter to pour out the champagne. Doris attacked her steak. ‘I’m still waiting,’ she said. ‘All you’ve told me so far is that your friend’s at Restbourne. Is that stop-press news?’
‘Well——’ I began.
‘I wish you wouldn’t go on saying “well”. What’s the use of a well without any water?’
‘It’s who he’s with.’
‘Who is he with? A woman, I suppose. Probably a woman like me. Restbourne is stiff with them.’
I stared at her. I had so often seen the Face coming to life under Edward’s pencil that it had something legendary and hypnotic about it, something of the immortality of art that made it more memorable than the living model. If Mona Lisa had sat beside her portrait, it would have overshadowed her.
‘I don’t know if she was like you,’ I said, ‘but she had the same name, Blackmore.’
That shook her a little, but only for a moment.
‘It’s a common name—not that we were brought up common. There are loads of Blackmores.’
‘Perhaps. But not at the Krazie Café.’
Then I got my effect—the same effect that Edward’s announcement had had on me, but more so.
‘You don’t say so!’ she said, and a mist, perhaps the expression of her inner bewilderment, clouded her dark-blue eyes. ‘A Blackmore at the Krazie Café! It doesn’t make sense.’
‘It didn’t to me,’ I said.
‘I left there five weeks ago—how could I still be there?’
‘That’s what I asked myself.’
‘Sounds dotty, doesn’t it?’ she said. ‘Was he kidding you?’
‘He’s not that sort of man.’
‘What took him to the Krazie Café anyway? What took you, for that matter?’
‘Ah, thereby hangs a tale,’ I said. ‘Some day I’ll tell you.’ But I didn’t think that we should meet again.
‘You keep stirring your drink with that long mushroom thing,’ she said. ‘What good does it do?’
‘It takes the effervescence out.’
‘You’ve taken the effervescence out of me. You’ve knocked me sideways. Well, you’re here, and I’m here, so what do we care——’
‘You’re too young to remember that song.’
‘My father used to sing it. “Well”, as you’re so fond of saying, your friend is at Restbourne with Miss Blackmore—not at the Krazie Café, it shut long ago, and not with me, because I’m here with you. It’s amazing, isn’t it?’
‘It is.’
‘You asked him to meet Miss Blackmore in London—I don’t know what you meant by it—and he’s with another Miss Blackmore at Restbourne. Perhaps he thought we were the same.’
‘That’s a question for metaphysics.’
‘I don’t understand your long words. But it is odd. But don’t let’s let it spoil our evening. . . . He didn’t tell you what her other name was?’
‘No. But I have just one clue. She must look exactly like you.’
‘Like me?’
‘Yes, or else he wouldn’t be with her.’
Doris frowned, then suddenly her eyebrows lifted and her whole face shone with understanding.
‘Why, it’s my sister!’
‘Your sister?’
‘You don’t remember much, do you? The twin sister I told you about. The quiet one.’
‘I do remember something.’
‘I don’t keep up with my family much, especially now. I was never any good at writing letters. . . . But it must be her. The sly-boots! She didn’t like her job, and always had a hankering for the Krazie. Yes, Gladys, that’s who it is. It might almost be me, for she’s the dead image of me.’
‘The living image.’
‘Yes, you’re right. She always was a close one. But why should she bother to tell me? I didn’t tell her when I went to London. Why write a letter, if you aren’t going to get anything out of it? But she’s a good girl, if you know what I mean, and I hope he’ll be good to her.’
‘I’m sure he will.’
‘What a chance! It might easily have been me, she’s exactly like me, though not so pretty as I am, some people say. Still, good luck to her.’
The full magnitude of her loss was becoming clear to Doris, and the Pêche Melba lay untasted on her plate.
‘It may be just a passing fancy for both of them,’ I said, but I didn’t believe it.
‘I wish I was in her shoes. Some people have all the luck.’
Our conversation languished. I thought wonderingly of Edward. What must have been the pressure on his feelings, to take him back to Restbourne, when he had been assured the bird had flown! And his blind faith had been rewarded: I felt sure that as long as Gladys lived, the Face would vanish from his doodlings.